The London Lightning began its defence of their National Basketball League of Canada title with a win Monday.

The good news is they got better as the night progressed. The bad news is they did so against a team that had to play with seven players most of the night.

Is it good enough for them to win a second title?

Only time will tell.

But for Monday, it was good enough.

The Moncton Miracles eventually wore out, allowing the Lightning to break the game open and take a 106-80 victory in Game 1 of the best-of-five National Basketball League of Canada semifinal in front of 2,685 at Budweiser Gardens.

While the score might have said it was an easy win, it was anything but. The Miracles built an 11-point first-half lead and were a handful for the Lightning until travel, sickness and injuries caught up to them.

That and the Bolts finally found their shooting eye in the second half.

“Twelve days off. Twelve days not playing,” Lightning guard DeAnthony Bowden said. “Once we got our legs back under us, we started playing our style of basketball.”

The Lightning found their legs, while the Miracles lost theirs.

It’s been a busy time for the Miracles. They had to go the limit in a best-of-three quarterfinal against St. John Mill Rats to get here, playing Saturday. They arrived in Toronto at 7 a.m. Monday, bringing nine players.

When they got to London key guard Darrell Wonge came down with the flu and he didn’t play. Late in the first quarter big-time shot blocker Sylvania Watkins went after a ball with Bowden and they collided in midair, with Watkins landing on his back. He was helped off the floor.

As the game wore on, the Miracles were simply too tired to defend all over the court and couldn’t shoot.

“We were undermanned already,” coach Dennis Truax said. “I can never doubt the effort of my guys. They played their ass off, the seven guys that were here worked hard. We just ran out of gas and they caught fire.”

Truax said the turnaround came when Bowden hit a couple of threes.

“He’s a leader,” Truax said. “They weren’t getting anything and he said ‘give it to me’ and it turned the game around.”

Bowden wasn’t the only one. When the Lightning found their shooting eye, they were deadly. In the second half they shot 53 per cent from the floor and 68 per cent from three-point range.

Bowden hit for 15 including three threes when the Lightning needed it.

Elvin Mims led the Lightning in scoring with 26 points and six blocked shots with Adrian Moss hitting for 17. Jeremy Williams was effective in his first game back since being injured in February hitting for 11 but more importantly showing some aggression and playing defence.

“The first half we was kind of flat, kind of rusty,” Richardson said. “But in the second half we played defence and broke it open.”

But while he was happy with the overall performance of his team, he knows his team has to make better selection of shots.

“We only shot seven free throws in the first half,” he said. “We have to take the ball to the basket. We got to attack the basket. In the second half we played defence and got easy shots.”

Isaac Butts had 27 for Moncton along with 16 rebounds. Devin Sweetney had 24.

Butts is a load and a half. At 6’10”, 285 pounds he’s hard to contain. Mims and Williams took turns on him and there was enough energy generated in some of those confrontations to power a small city.

The Miracles at full strength can be difficult because opponents have to watch Sweetney and Wonge shooting threes and at the same time worry about Butts getting the ball inside.

Antwi Atuahene who started in the backcourt said the difference in the second half was ball movement.

“We got caught up holding the ball and chillin’,” he said. “We got the ball movement going in the second half and we had to do it. They didn’t have that many guys. You could tell they were getting tired.”

Game 2 in the series is Wednesday at The Gardens. The Lightning better wait until after this series to do any more chillin’ or the Miracles might make things a little hotter for them.

This Week's Flyers

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.